Permission to use decks graciously permitted. From left, Dark Tarot, Visconti Tarots published by Lo Scarabeo 1995, the Tarot of Marseille (Claude Burdel) published by Lo Scarabeo 2014, and Tarot Cards, most commonly known as the 1JJ Swiss produced by AG Muller in Switzerland exclusively for US Games Systems, Inc 1970. Links to all publishers is available in the content of the article.

When I teach tarot, I encourage my students to wait until after the first lesson before choosing a particular tarot deck to learn from. My first lesson is in helping them figure out what deck will probably work best with their own sensibilities after introducing them to several deck examples and the philosophies behind them. Despite this suggestion, most students are eager to get started and typically always arrive with a deck in hand. Interestingly, they rarely show up with a TdM (Milan or Marseille) styled deck. The decks they have chosen may have been inherited from a family member who passed on, may have been found in a thrift store bin by chance, or simply purchased on a whim. Though there are advantages to purchasing a first deck after the first lesson, the positive aspects of students arriving with a deck in tow is that it is probably is that very same deck that piqued their interest in learning tarot in the first place. This is the first lesson in demonstrating that learning tarot in an organic way is beneficial. We aren't inclined to use decks that we aren't attracted to.

After that first lesson if my students haven't already chosen a deck, I will suggest that they consider buying a TdM styled deck because it will be a deck less likely to have been inundated by occult divinatory symbolism. Of course there will be symbolism and some of it will be unfamiliar, but these are the card images that sparked the creative imaginations of the occultists in the first place. They are the earliest tarot decks after all, which inspired the use of tarot for divinatory and cartomancy purposes by later occultists, so their symbolism will launch you as it did those who have come before you. The cast of characters of these earliest decks is pretty much the same as modern day with a few variations which are easy to discern, and the suits basically remain the same. I think of them more or less, as a pure state of tarot. I'd suggest a Visconti Tarot (Lo Scarabeo publishes one commercially for very little money) or a generic Marseille style deck which they also publish at little cost. Ancient Italian Tarot is an exceptionally beautiful TdM style deck also published by Lo Scarabeo for little cost. I do not have any monetary links to Lo Scarabeo so these are purely my own aesthetic opinion and not one motivated by self-benefit. U.S. Games Systems, Inc also have excellent options. There are a great many restoration or reproduction pre occult tarot decks available for purchase by a number of publishers. I just cited a few good mass-produced decks which may be purchased at little cost. If you are a very clever and ambitious person, you may consider printing out your own TdM style tarot deck in a manner that I describe in this previous blog post for next to little or no cost.

My first deck was the 1JJ Swiss Tarot Deck, a (more or less) TdM styled deck. It was the first deck that I ever laid eyes on at ten or eleven years old along with the rest of America when it first appeared on American TV on the Dark Shadows Gothic serial in 1968 or '69. I was a kid, but I knew there was something that I now understand as occult about them, but at that time I would have been limited to thinking of them as mysterious, maybe a little bit dangerous, and certainly not of the realm of normal daily suburban life. The idea that these cards existed got stored in the back burner of my mind. (After your finish this article, you can read about that experience here and here.)

Those articles describe my learning experiences with tarot. One of the advantages of being self taught is that one is at liberty to make associations between the cards in a way that make sense to us as individuals. You can shave years off the process with a great teacher. One of the benefits of having a great teacher or mentor is that she or he will guide you to see and learn, but not tell you what to think.

Being self-taught is probably a rarity today with so many 'Learn Tarot' type classes online and tarot information being so readily available, including this very blog. There are also so many tarot decks to peruse and so many modern day Etteilla's and Levi's trying to leave their mark on the tarot industry and maybe even tarot history. Information about tarot is everywhere you look for it. In some ways I feel sorry for beginner readers who have been deprived of learning tarot the hard way, but of course, it is very nice to read about others' experiences and to have access to all those great thinkers who went before us. If it weren't for the availability of online research of tarot knowledge and keeping up with books on the topic, I readily admit that my natural understanding would only have progressed so far. But there is pressure too, in having so much information available because it deprives an aspiring reader of the 'permission' to come to her or his own conclusions.

Having said that, in learning about the big thinkers of tarot of yesteryear; the occultists who first started organizing their ideas, one will see that some of their research was really stuff they either misunderstood, or even made up to give lineage and mystique to their new found interests and agendas. This lent authority to them in promoting their new careers as card readers and fortune tellers. That may sound like sacrilege, but it's largely true. Subsequent occult organizations have adopted the tarot and manipulated it to establish their own esoteric line of thinking and often created their own decks to reflect their own beliefs and lend credibility to their own particular style of tarot reading. Since they were all human after all, just as we are, their systems and logic are no more valid than our own, but since their decks reflect their own philosophies and agendas, we are often beholden to read their decks with their philosophies in mind. It is possible to ignore some images, glyphs, or symbols in a tarot deck if it disagrees with our views, but we cannot ignore it when we say it means one thing but the card image describes something completely different.

It may sound counter-intuitive to say this, but the major trump cards are less problematic to learn because their prototypes had been established hundreds of years before people began reading the pip cards, and even though some deck creators may change the major trump names names a bit, we all know who the key players of the major arcana are in a tarot deck.

Because there are so many decks based on so many philosophies, tarot decks do not share one universal divinatory or system of interpretation. A tarot newbie might just be getting used to one deck when she/he purchases a 2nd deck that has a different foundation philosophy. It can make the newbie wonder what is going on? Which is right? I will add my own two cents here by suggesting that some deck creators have jumped on the tarot card bandwagon opportunity without really having any real tarot background. So largely, yeah, they made stuff up as they went along. Other creators who have done research and have been reading for years also ascribe their own sensibilities and meanings to the cards. So yes, although more informed they too have created a deck that reflects their own ideas. That is probably why they created a deck in the first place, to have one that matches their philosophy of tarot. See where I'm getting at? When you really like a tarot deck, it's probably because by and large, we accept that particular philosophy. Every time we use a deck our readings are influenced by that particular deck.

Once you get your TdM deck, isolate the twenty-two major trump cards from the pips numbered ace through ten. You will see that the major trumps each have an illustration depicting a mythic or classical source. I encourage you to do your research and make it your business to learn what they reference. Excellent sources will be Paul Huson, Robert M Place, Christine Payne Towler and Ronald Decker who are among my favorite. You can thank me later. These authors will help you understand the original symbolism which in turn will help you understand the basic concepts at play. You may argue with me here and say, 'Wouldn't it be more organic for me to simply meditate on each card and allow a flow of consciousness unveil their meanings?' Yes, you could do that, and you should because you may come up with some fascinating meanings of your own. But I think too, that you will cheat yourself of the fascinating subtleties of tarot that will promote a central core of understanding. Medieval and Renaissance audiences knew the story, moral, or lesson inherent in each of the major trump cards, much like we could readily call to mind the story, and lessons of Pinocchio if we see an image of a wooden puppet with an elongated wooden or tree branched nose. True, without knowing the story of Pinocchio we might be able to come up with a compelling explanation for the image, but think of all the nuances of meaning we'd be depriving ourselves of.

Learning about the major trumps will be a fascinating learning experience for you. Unlike the pips, their inherent meanings are kind of set in flexible stone. Similar to learning the multiplication tables, once you invest in learning them you can expand on them to create some truly remarkable equations. By all means, also study the majors intuitively to come to terms with the ideas or concepts they represent to you. But yeah, it is incumbent upon the serious tarot practicioner to learn the classic identities of these twenty-two cards. They are the images that started the ball rolling in the tarot world and a combination of serious study along with intuition will be a terrific elixir for learning them.

The images would have been readily recognizable to a 15th century audience, who would have known exactly what lesson or story was being portrayed. These early cards are like a font, a source of information and glimpse into the ancient myths, stories and morals that helped civilization along the way. Truths that would have been evident to the people of their day and by virtue of time, that we may have forgotten. There are only twenty-two cards to learn this way and your solid understanding of them will enhance your ability to relate them to the numbered suit cards.

Despite not having illustrations depicting scenes, the pip cards, ace through ten, might actually be easier to form a more natural learning relationship with if they do not have illustrated scenes on them. Isolate each suit. Study the ace, the two through ten cards and the courts. Do this for each suit. What do you think of when you think of coins, batons, swords, or chalices? Do they call to mind any organic associations for you? Write them down. Do the sword courts remind you of any of the cast of characters in the major trumps? What about the rest of the suits? Jot your thoughts down, you are now beginning your first tarot journal.

Think of ace to ten as a progressive sequence, and it can be in either direction. Do the coins suggest material wealth or something else? Would you rather have one coin or ten? You might not feel that way about the other suits, you might prefer fewer swords if they feel threatening to you. Ask yourself these types of questions for each suit.

I have always associated the batons (or rods, staves, wands) and the swords with masculine energy since it was easier for me to think of them as masculine since they reminded me of phallic symbols. By default then, the coins and cups became the more feminine suits for me in tarot. Identifying the suits in this way will help you establish personality types, or even careers or social strata.

Cups really made sense to me as a feminine energy if we think of the feminine gender as being the vessel for potential life and the coins as a material and earthbound suit. But that is me, do the batons with their sprouting leaves remind you of birth and new life instead? Who's to say you'd be wrong if you chose them as female energy? It may not be the popular opinion, but if it makes sense to you it will stick with you.

My associations seem to be in alignment with some readers, but not all, just as yours will. You can determine things like directions, seasons of the year, etc. Later, you may subscribe to a deck with an affinity with astrology or other philosophy, but if you don't have an affinity for those philosophies going in, you can still learn to read tarot perfectly well by virtue of understanding the symbolism of the concept of the card. Astrological notations or additional markings can help you remember their meanings, but their meanings are already embedded within the classical image.​I figured out my directional assignments based on my own experience with the earth. I associated batons with fire (wood burns being my logic) and fire is hot. In my naivete forty plus years ago, batons made sense in the south where life is hotter. Cups for me was a no brainer for east, because cups are vessels that usually contain liquid. My birth origin and where I've lived most of my life is on the east coast of the United States, completely bordered by ocean on that side, so it was natural for me to associate cups with an eastern direction. By default then, swords and coins needed a direction and since I like things to be even Steven, Coins ended up being the feminine northern direction to compliment the masculine batons I assigned to the south and Swords became the western masculine energy to counter-balance the feminine cups I associated with the east. Having coins to the north also made sense to me because if it represented the physical world, there was more land to my north than to my south. Also, most of the winds that come to my region come from the west. So from my perspective these directional assignments made sense. My perspective would be different depending on where I lived, mightn't it as they had when western Europeans, began assigning their own directions (water with the west, where the water source was in relation to their location perhaps). You see, it's all about perspectives, isn't it? your perspective might be quite different, so go for it. If it doesn't make sense to you, it probably won't stick.

Eventually, I began to see the suits in terms of seasons of the year, not for predictive purposes, but for being able to tell what stage a situation might be in. If you think of winter as an end stage and spring as a birth stage, you might associate seeing higher numbered cards of a suit as being toward the end stage of a situation and lower numbered cards of a particular suit as the beginning stages. You can see how making associations between the suits and the seasons might be helpful to this end. Look at the pip suits, what feeling do you get from them in regards to weather? Think of your own geographical location as inspiration. Do you live in summer-like tropics all year? Which of the suits remind you of your own landscape? Maybe not the swords, but maybe the blossoming batons or over-flowing cups? (And if you would pick swords, you'd be in good company. Learn about Eudes Picard who associated swords with water in his Great Esoteric Tarot.) What about things like personality traits, professions, and the arts? What about science, literature, music and painting? Who are the people who have swords, or what do swords conjure up in our minds? Justice maybe, law and order, or something else? What about cups, batons and coins? Do this kind of meditation with each of the suits until you come up with logical associations in a variety of categories for them.

Most TdM style pips, especially the older ones I've mentioned, seem not to have too many associations with seasons or directions and for this reason lend themselves to allowing a reader to come to her or his own conclusions. Once a reader has their own understanding down pat, it becomes easier to switch to a different deck even if the deck's creator has different associations or embellishes the decks with symbols or glyphs that the reader doesn't recognize. That is part of the organic learning process. If you like the deck you will learn about the additional symbolism which you may adopt as your own or you may not ending up agreeing with it at all. But the point being that you have the faculties to either embrace or reject concepts based on your own genuine understanding and relationship with the cards. In some decks the addition of glyphs and other symbols might help you remember some aspect of the meaning of that card that eludes you. Perhaps the astrological references in some decks help you remember aspects of a card meaning if you already have an understanding of astrology or it may prompt you to learn. In other words, learning with a TdM deck allows you great flexibility in being able to learn a different style of tarot once you become proficient.

Starting to learn tarot from one of the illustrated decks such as a RWS style might have obvious advantages, you don't really have to think too much, the image is right there;But (you knew there would be a but) it becomes less fluid to then try to read from a TdM style deck when your mind's eye is trying to conjure up individuals in a particular scene. See what I'm getting at? I tend to think that learning tarot with a TdM style deck allows easier transitions when learning other styled decks. If you can read TdM in other words, you can read anything and it's probably the easiest deck to learn, if you learn it in a natural way.

Something happened that I don't think has ever happened before! I actually won something!

OK, everyone who participated in the contest actually won a deck, which speaks of the generous nature of its hosts, the folks over at DarkTarot.com and Benebell Wen who hosted the contest.

The card size is 2 3/4" x 4 3/4" and the card-stock is flexible with a mat finish. I mention these things because although they are not available for purchase, they may be printed directly from the site onto your own card-stock.

There are two tarot decks available for free printing at the site and I'm guessing you could scan the images onto a tarot template at a self publishing card site such as makeplayingcards.com and have your own copy of the deck printed. (I'm guessing this is how my deck was made since it came boxed in a simple white tuck box with a clear cellophane window typical of self-publishing deck sites.)

It is a TdM style deck as shown in my photograph. Pip cards Ace through Tens are decorative but do not illustrate any scenes. I am currently in the process of writing a blog encouraging beginners to learn to read tarot with a TdM style deck and this, in my opinion, is a terrific TdM deck to learn with. I'll have that blog up and running within a few days. Talk about perfect timing and synchronicity! But back to this review...

The art appears to be the creator's own line-drawing and watercolor rendering of old school tarot decks. The backgrounds of all the cards are a golden yellow, a little darker in each of the four corners. Its execution has a bit of a charming naivete about it. There are no color associations for each suit and overall the deck is homogeneous in execution with shades of reds, greens, and blues.

The higher trump cards are unnumbered which is unusual but liberating and consequently doesn't commit Strength or Justice to either eight or eleven. All the major trumps are identified by name at the bottom of each card, featuring The Popess and The Pope in place of The High Priestess and The Hierophant. Interestingly the Death card has a name which is unusual since in old school decks it tends to be unnamed but numbered.

The backs of the cards appear to reversible and if they aren't, it's so subtle that I can't readily tell. A simple line drawing of a large sun with a smaller sun in each of the four corners.

All in all a lovely deck which I am delighted to have won and thrilled to add to my collection.

​If you'd like to print your very own copy visit DarkTarot.com and click the 'More' tab to check them out!

From one of the very earliest existent tarot decks, the Visconti Tarots, to one of the most recent of the modern age, The Orbifold Tarot, tarot has been making use of symbols, colors, numbers, and elemental associations to get its point across. Whether it was to merely play a card game, divine the future, or to assist a questioner with helping her or him navigate their way through a challenging situation, tarot's essence remains remarkably intact

Although the earliest tarot decks sometimes varied in number from today's accepted 78, most of the key players remain intact and the oldest decks have more similarities than differences with modern decks.

From the three cards chosen at random in the image above, the basic ingredients have not changed and one might even see visual similarities between the respective cards of these two decks separated by about 550+- years. Even more similarities might be seen in comparing The Orbifold to any other random tarot deck.

Granted, without the names on the Orbifold, it might be difficult to impossible for a reader to initially recognize the figures of its modern design, but we have the benefit of title and number on each of the card fronts, as well as the colors identifying the energy and elements behind each card, so this is not a handicap. The latter benefit is something consistently missing from most other decks and in this way lends itself very well to a newbie tarot reader.

My tastes have always been old school tarot, and my interests in tarot have never been superficial. I've always been as much interested in learning where and how tarot came to be as I have been interested in honing my skill as a reader. In fact, my understanding of the cards could not have happened without an evolving addictive interest in learning what significance each card had during its formative years.

Which brings me to my next point, The Orbifold Tarot is an intelligent and well researched deck that cuts to the chase or a reading. It may not be everyone's aesthetic cup of tea, but there's no denying that is is a well thought out deck that nails its essence.

I've read many comments referring to The Orbifold as an advanced deck, and one not for the beginner, but I couldn't disagree more. Just look at the three random cards above, Judgement, The Chariot and The High Priestess. Just from first glance you know the name of each card, it's number, and the colors which consistently identify their respective elemental associations.

Being able to identify the elements without much effort is this deck's greatest learning feature.

I first learned tarot from a TdM style deck, so it was necessary for me to assign meaning to the numbers and their suits from the get-go. It made total sense to learn that way because the meanings make sense when you understand the motivation, the energies behind each card. When I finally purchased a RWS deck, I remember sometimes feeling a bit frustrated adjusting my meaning to a card when the images on the cards just didn't jibe with the meanings that I had assigned to them, especially to the pip cards. Neither the TdM or RWS deck readily informed a new reader of a major trump card's elemental associations unless the reader was well enough read and knew the astrological or alchemical associations that linked a major trump to its elemental influences. The pips naturally, were easier to assign because basic understanding of the cards four suits would let a reader identify the primary energies at play. But even then, picking up on predominant numeric and elemental influences only happened if the reader was astute, and wasn't too distracted by the art on deck they were using. There is no escaping these influences with The Orbifold.​I've read comments by other readers in forums that even after decades of reading tarot, they still visualize the images on the RWS when reading from a deck other than the RWS format. How much easier if they just knew what the card meant without trying to conjure up an RWS stock image? And this is what The Orbifold Tarot allows immediately, thus effectively letting a reader see the primary influences at play at first glance.

Looking at all three cards above, you immediately know that Judegement and The Chariot are driven by the same elemental principles of air and earth and that The High Priestess is driven by fire and water. We don't get that from the Visconti Tarots. (OK it would be a valued point to say the earlier deck wasn't necessarily read as a divinatory deck, but their allegorical and therefore elemental associations are present nonetheless.

If the above three cards were actually a three card reading, you would immediately see that all four suits were represented and to what degree, even though not a single pip card were present. Granted, a reader might argue that they assign the elements to the major trumps differently than The Orbifold, but if you're a newbie just learning, you're still probably going to identify with the system you learned from until you come up with your own system that seems more right to you. But your personal elemental assignments probably won't differ all that much and The Orbifold's associations are as good as any to learn from.

Despite The Orbifold elemental associations to its respective majors, the abstract images of the majors might be a bit more challenging to the new tarot learner, which is why I recommend learning The Orbifold alongside another deck, much in the same way I laid the two decks out in the photo. In fact, when I teach my next tarot class or individual student, I will probably pull out my Orbifold as a study guide for them, to help illustrate and drive home the whole elemental associations point.

As of this moment there is no book for The Orbifold, but I do not think that is an issue for a new learner. The pamphlet is as brilliantly precise as the deck, and it's numeric and elemental assignments are as good as any that I've come across. Once you grasp the associations between numeric and elemental meanings, you're pretty much on your way. This deck and the pamphlet makes quick sense of the process and probably could save years of trying to figure this stuff out, because it's all immediately visual and requires no memorization. In fact, without any predetermined images or distracting keywords, this deck allows a reader to learn on a very personal level. Which makes it more meaningful and easier to learn. I should mention that Michael Bridges-Dickson produced many youtube videos in support of his deck for learners that need extra support.

Perhaps in a few decades it will be read in forums that readers visualize The Orbifold colors in order to readily recall what elemental dignities a particular card is associated with.

The Buckland Romani Tarot by Raymond Buckland and Lissanne Lake 2001 Llewellyn Publications. A link to the publisher provided in content of article.

OK, so I admit it. I can't resist a good horse race. I'm tuning into the Preakness Stakes later today and I'm making my almost compulsory tarot prediction. Yeah, I know intellectually that there are too many variables for a sane tarot reader to make a prediction on a horse race, but I simply cannot resist.

A pair of nines and a page that is kind of like an eleven.

Nyquist (the winner of the Kentucky Derby) is again the preferred and projected winner of this race and is coming out of gate #3. A pair of nines kind of pounds that exaggerated 3 home. However, a pair of nines, as I mentioned, is kind of an exaggeration isn't it, and since there is a horse named Exaggerator coming out of gate #5 I might be inclined to choose Exaggerator over Nyquist.

The last card, the page,makes me think that Stradivari will have a decent placement in this race and give them all a run for their money.

One might ask why I am not mentioning the horse coming out of #9 Gate, Abiding Star. With 30-1 odds, I am passing on this one. I have been learning from watching these races and I am now beginning to understand the process a little bit more. My last prediction for the Kentucky Derby was bet on the #8 Horse, Lani who had these same 30-1 odds and only placed 9th in the overall race. And I'm still kicking myself for ignoring the fact that the 1st card I drew was #13, the gate which was assigned to Nyquist . So you see, a bit of an educated guess enters into the process. Had I understood better how it all worked at that time, I might have made a more accurate prediction. (Not necessarily, but I'd like to think I would have.) (You can read about my lKentucky Derby faux pas here)

So as tempting as it is to say #9 will be the winner, I have to use some horse sense and eliminate Abiding Star completely from the winner's realm. Had The Star card appeared in this spread I might have been tempted to choose Abiding Star, but not today.

So who am I ultimately predicting as the winner?

The Nine of Cups and the Nine of Wheels, kind of says to me, rain will affect the legs.

So, drum roll please.....My prediction is Exaggerator for today's win, even though Nyquist is the projected winner. Exaggerator, might have a slight edge over Nyquist when it comes to wet weather. There is no question that Nyquist will undoubtedly place high and maybe I'm a fool for not going with Nyquist, but with those particular two nines which I interpret as water and legs, and with the exaggeration of repeating nines, my prediction is Exaggerator.

Of course if there's no rain, I'll probably be kicking myself in the arse tomorrow.

The edition of this featured deck is out-of-print but was published by Llewellyn Publications. Information on this edition may be found at: www.llewellyn.com and the new incarnation of this deck may be purchased through Galde Press.

For the past few years my husband as gotten me hooked on watching the Kentucky Derby Race with him. Last year, for the first time, I had decided to make a prediction for the winner using the cards. It is an exception to my usual habit of not doing predictive readings. Last year my prediction was spot on.

This year, despite in-my-face clues to the winner's identity, I predicted incorrectly.

In an ironic twist, I often tell my clients that predicting the future is a lot like predicting a horse race, there are so many variables that have nothing to do with our own free will, though certainly our own actions do contribute to how many of our own life situations play out.

But in the case of a horse race, the outcome has nothing to do with any of my own actions and frankly, guessing a horse race is well, just as unreliable as guessing on a horse race!

Of course I realized this before posting my prediction and I knew I only had a 1 in 20 chance of guessing right. In fact, I was pretty certain that my guess would not be correct. But in the spirit of fun I did it anyway and now, in retrospect, I see it was a very interesting learning process about the predictive nature of tarot.

For those of you who did not read my prediction when I posted it Saturday morning, you may read it here, but I will summarize in the account that follows.

The day prior to making my 'official' predictive Kentucky Derby reading, my daughter (also a tarot reader) and I decided to make a joint effort at predicting the outcome of the race. We pulled cards simultaneously and ironically got similar feeling cards like Death and the Tower for card 1, and we both pulled an 8 for the 2nd card. We interpreted this to mean that there would be an upset, or an unusual occurrence. We tried a 2nd time because we could not agree on which horse we thought it represented, and again we both pulled an 8, I again pulled Death (#13), and my daughter pulled the Six of Wands which in her particular deck was represented by a newspaper headline with a huge news event. This time we again felt there would be an upset because of the 2nd Death card that I pulled, that would cause breaking news because of her newspaper image, and we associated it with a horse named Suddenbreakingnews. But the eight that we both pulled both times made the situation very confusing. We thought about the card meanings into the next day, but had no real inclination for who would win. In fact, it occurred to me that this year, the outcome of the race would not be mine to know.

On the morning of the races I made my final prediction with three cards from the same deck that I had success with the year before. Those cards were: #13 Death, The #1 Ace of Coins, and again, the #8 card. In that deck the #8 card was represented by Strength, not Justice as it is represented by the cards used for this photo.

Now, Death #13 was the first card I pulled and I admit, I should have paid more attention to it since I had pulled it consistently two days in a row along with the 8. But again, I interpreted the cards to illustrate Death as a sudden upset, the Ace of Coins as the winner's circle, which all had something to do with the horse out of Gate #8. And so whatever horse was in Gate #8 was where I placed my prediction.

In a kick-in-the-teeth scenario, when we tuned into the race, we saw that in the race immediately before the Kentucky Derby race, the #8 horse won. During that race, two horses and their jockeys were felled, which was quite a bit of an unexpected upset.

I knew right then and there that two horses from Gate #8 were very unlikely to win two races in a row, and the odds of another upset were slim to none. But it seemed to be some consolation when we learned that Lani, the #8 horse in the Kentucky Derby race was a bit of a bad-ass horse, so bad that in fact, that he had to be separated from the other horses so that he would not upset them or distract them before the race. It was with this in mind that I rooted for Lani coming around the stretch, hoping beyond hope that he would be the shocking winner that would upset the projected winner's winning streak.

But alas, the #13 horse, Nyquist was the undisputed winner. There was no upset at all, Nyquist was the projected winner and the race was pretty much text book perfect.

Although the information was there all along in the cards, I did not interpret it the way it played out. The #13 horse pranced to the winner's circle #1 position while the #8 horse served no other purpose than to keep me humble.